


Stakeout

by helsinkibaby



Series: Partners [5]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Community: 1-million-words, F/M, Het, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 19:38:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5639509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caitlin and Joe are on a stakeout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stakeout

**Author's Note:**

> http://1-million-words.livejournal.com/1507426.html --Thursday tropes. Auto erotica 

"I'd forgotten how boring these things were." 

The words are out of Caitlin's mouth before she can stop them and Joe takes his eye off the doors of the apartment building long enough to look at her and lift an eyebrow. "What, you're getting sick of my company already?" His eyes go back to the doors via the clock on the car dashboard. "We've only been here an hour, partner... We could be here a lot longer."

Which she knows; of course she knows. And it's not like it's her first stakeout, even if she hasn't been on as many as he has. But the types of jobs they've been called to lately have been tending towards the meta human variety and there's a lot more immediate action involved there. For starters, they rarely know their current home addresses so sitting outside waiting for them to show up isn't usually an option. 

"I guess I've just got used to most of our cases involving meta humans," she says and while he doesn't take his eyes off the street opposite them, he tilts his head, purses his lips, in a way that tells her he agrees with her as eloquently as if he'd spoken the words. 

"Straight up assault is a rarity," he agrees, "but I can't say I'm not gonna enjoy writing up a report that does not read like an episode of _Star Trek_."

Caitlin smiles. "I know what you mean." Then, because she has been cooped up in here for an hour and she's getting stiff, she laces her fingers together, pushes her arms out as far as they'll go  before turning her hands and repeating the manoeuvre. Her knuckles crack and her shoulder threatens to pop so she pushes up as much as she can without hitting the roof of the car, stretching as best she can. When she looks back to the street, out of the corner of her eye, she can see Joe staring at her. "Sorry," she says. "Just a bit stiff."

"Yeah." His voice is low, almost amused, and there is a tone there that she never ever hears at work, has only been hearing privately for the last couple of weeks. It's still new enough that there are instant shivers down her spine and when she looks at him, when his eyes meet hers, there's a look in them that she also has never ever seen at work. "I know what you mean."

It takes a second for his meaning to register with her and when it does, her cheeks flame scarlet and she covers her mouth, but not before a little squeak escapes. She should be embarrassed by the sound, she thinks, but then his eyes flutter shut and he grits his teeth as he shifts in his seat. "Yeah, that's not helping," he says. He opens his eyes and she must look as confused as she feels because he says, "It's not unlike the noises..."

"Oh." She gets it then and she only thought her cheeks were scarlet before. She obviously didn't know the meaning of the word. 

It looks like a struggle but he drags his eyes away from her, locks them on the apartment building opposite them. One elbow rests on the window, his hand balled up in a fist against his lips. "I'm sorry," he says after a moment, but he doesn't move his hand and he doesn't look at her. "We don't do this at work... and I know better, Caitlin, I do, but..."

"But we're stuck in a car together and this is the closest we've been to one another on the job since we..." Caitlin stares at the apartment building too, tries not to let her peripheral vision of him interfere too much with her thought processes, just like she's trying to forget that he never calls her Caitlin on the clock. She fails, utterly. "I thought it was just me."

Because the moment they'd pulled up outside this building, the moment it had occurred to her - really, properly occurred to her, not just in the abstract, "we're on a stakeout" kind of way - that she and Joe were going to be sitting here, side by side, for an indeterminate amount of time, she hadn't been able to help remembering how they'd spent their previous times alone together. 

Remember how his hands, currently clenched knuckle-pale, felt as they moved over her skin. 

Remember how his lips felt against hers, how his smile felt against her skin. 

Remember how his beard felt against the inside of her thighs. 

That thought makes her shiver and he must see that in his peripheral vision because his lips twitch and one eyebrow lifts, even if he's not properly looking at her. "Oh really?" He almost sounds pleased with that and she's equal parts annoyed and aroused. 

"The minute I smelled your cologne..." She presses her lips together before she can say more; they've had a talk about this, they've had more than one talk about this. Partners on the clock and that is all, they have agreed. 

Except he seems as eager to remember that pact as she is, which is to say, not very. "I'm watching these doors," he tells her quietly, "and all I can think about is what I'm going to do when I get you home..." His right hand, the one closest to her, lands on her knee, his fingers tracing not so idle circles against the material of her pants. "All the things I want to do to you right now..."

His hand inches up higher and Caitlin sucks in a deep breath, knowing she should stop him but not really wanting to, wanting him to keep talking, his hand to keep moving, to touch her where she's suddenly aching to be touched...

All in all, it's a relief when her cell phone rings. 

They both jump and she grabs her phone, checks the caller ID. "Eddie," she says and she pretends not to notice when he rolls his eyes. She answers the call, listens to Eddie as he tells her that they've apprehended the suspect halfway across the city and she relays the information to Joe, adding pointedly to Eddie while looking at Joe, "So this whole thing was just a waste of time." 

Eddie makes sympathetic noises on the other end of the phone and she hurries him off the line, double checking the call is ended before she looks back to Joe. He's equally as cautious before he speaks. "Well," he says, eyes dancing, smile bright, hand rising just where she wanted him, "not quite a waste of time..." 


End file.
